Online+Ad+Critique

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**Brief Introduction**
T-Mobile's 'Royal Wedding' campaign is part of T-Mobile's large brand campaign called 'Life's for Sharing' which is introduced in 2011 (McCabe 2011). T-Mobile's 'Royal Wedding' campaign is communicated on YouTube's platform. The campaign takes the form of a regular online video and a viral video inspired style. Saatchi & Saatchi in the UK created this campaign for T-Mobile as well as the previous campaigns it created for them under T-Mobile's large brand campaign (McCabe 2011). The 'Royal Wedding' campaign was posted on YouTube a couple days before the real royal wedding when many people were waiting for the footage of the real royal wedding, but a teaser video of the campaign was released before the actual video. The campaign's video quickly transitioned from a regular online video to a viral video as its number of views skyrocketed after its release. This campaign encouraged viewers to share the video on different social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

**Access to Campaign**
The T-Mobile 'Royal Wedding' campaign was accessed on YouTube before the real royal wedding took place. The campaign's video was listed as one of the top videos on YouTube's home page when it was accessed.This campaign was interesting because it reached a wide audience in a short time and the campaign's video quickly became viral after it was posted on YouTube.

**Target Audience**
UK residents or people residing in the UK are the target audience of T-Mobile's 'Royal Wedding' campaign. International brand awareness might be another thing T-Mobile is trying to achieve by posting a video on YouTube.

**Intention of Campaign**
Brand awareness, brand engagement and word-of-mouth are the goals of T-Mobile's 'Royal Wedding' campaign. Achieving brand awareness is one of the goals of this campaign because T-Mobile was trying to make people be aware of T-Mobile and its nature. People become aware of T-Mobile's brand by having access to the different platforms T-Mobile is communicated on. T-Mobile can easily make people who use YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter be aware of the T-Mobile's brand because communication on one platform can be transferred to another platform. Communication about the campaign on YouTube can be transferred by a user who shares the video with their friends on Facebook or who tweets about the campaign to their followers on Twitter. Brand awareness can be improved by achieving brand engagement and word-of-mouth. Brand engagement is another goal of this campaign by telling that the campaign includes people who were invited to act as guests in the ad (O'Reilly 2011). Encouraging people to share the video of the campaign via social media websites is another indication of the brand engagement goal as well as the word-of-mouth goal. Allowing users to rate the video is also another indication of the brand engagement goal as well as the word-of-mouth goal. The simultaneous commenting on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook contributes to T-Mobile's brand engagement goal.

**Techniques Applied**
Associating an advertisement with a current important social event is one of the techniques of this campaign. Application of the online video platform trends to create a commercial which engages existing and potential consumers. T-Mobile follows the YouTube trend in wedding dance videos in this campaign like the 'JK Wedding Entrance Dance' (McCabe 2011). The T-Mobile includes people who have been invited via Facebook to act as the guests at the wedding in the royal wedding spoof video, and it invited staff to join the set of the spoof ad video (O'Reilly 2011). This technique contributes to the campaign's brand engagement goal.

**Advertising Platforms**
The campaign uses the following advertising platforms: YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. A spoof video of the royal wedding is posted on YouTube before the real royal wedding in an attempt to make the video viral which would help T-Mobile achieve its campaign's main goals. A teaser video of the ad is released on YouTube a couple days before the release of the original video ad. The teaser video helps T-Mobile build the anticipation of its target audience in attempt to quickly make the video viral and successful. People share the video on social media websites like Twitter and Facebook.

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 * Teaser YouTube Video:**

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 * Original YouTube Video:**

**Conclusion**
T-Mobile's attempt at advertising and creating a viral video advertisement is successful, since it was able to get successful results from the implementation of an online platform for reaching their target audience. The teaser video has 170, 000 views the first day it was released (O'Reilly 2011). The original YouTube video of the campaign has 4 million views after its release to the public (Pilkington 2011). The image of the T-Mobile 'Royal Wedding' video shows that the campaign is still trending on YouTube after a year. The image of the current comments on the YouTube shows that people are still commenting and revisiting the video after a year. T-Mobile's campaign applied the right techniques for branding by incorporating viral marketing as well as social media platforms.


 * Image of Current Ratings on Video:**


 * Image of Some Current Comments on Video:**

**Brief Introduction**
M&M’s ‘Find Red’ campaign is created by Proximity Canada which ended by the end of 2010 (Blum 2011). M&M’s ‘Find Red’ campaign is an interactive and an integrated advertising campaign that took place in Canada. This campaign took a different and digital approach to advertising products than traditional advertising campaigns. The ‘Find Red’ Campaign has a scavenger hunt style which required the existing and potential consumers to be involved. The style of this campaign allows consumers to become active participants in getting out the message of the campaign instead of being passive individuals that only receive the message of the campaign. Basically, this style of campaign enables a two-way communication between the M&M and the consumers where there is constant communication between the two parties. This campaign provides both existing and potential consumers a goal which is to find three locations where the missing red M&M might have hidden in using the available tools to figure out clues that can help them find the three locations the red M&M (Houpt 2011). M&M provides its consumers tools that involve several platforms. The following are the tools that M&M provided its consumers: social media, mobile, print, and online tools. The winner of the scavenger hunt would win a red Smart Fortwo Coupe car (Houpt 2011).

**Access to Campaign**
The 'Find Red' campaign was accessed from the Applied Arts magazine which lists advertising companies that have gotten awards for their advertising campaigns under specific advertising categories. The campaign's integrated and multiple advertising platforms encouraged me to write about it. This campaign is different then regular advertising campaigns.

**Target Audience**
M&M made it clear to which age group it is targeting by placing an age restriction to its campaign website. An individual is required to enter their birth date and year before being able to access the campaign's website. The 'Find Red' campaign is targeted to a 13 - 25 age group that reside in Canada (Blum 2011).

**Intention of Campaign**
Brand engagement, brand awareness, word-of-mouth, creating value for the consumer, and appropriating value are the aims or goals of M&M's 'Find Red' campaign. M&M's application of various communication tools in this campaign indicates their intention of trying to reach, get closer, and keep in touch with their existing and potential consumers. The campaign's scavenger hunt style enables M&M to engage their consumers with the brand by requiring consumers to participate in finding the three locations in Toronto where the red M&M might have hidden. The inclusion of a prize in the campaign allows M&M to be able to achieve it brand engagement goal. Consumers like incentives and incentives provide consumers a rewarding experience with a specific brand which the Smart car prize provides in this campaign. Incentives encourage consumers to participate in the experience a brand might present through a campaign. The experience that this campaign provides consumers can contribute to the brand's awareness. The outcome of this campaign has also an influence on M&M's international brand awareness by telling that the information that the consumers involved in the campaign post on the social media websites about their experience with the campaign can be accessible to other countries. Word-of-mouth is another goal that this campaign is trying to achieve because it is using more than one way to make it easier for the consumers that participate and see the campaign to communicate about it to their friends or followers. Value creation is another goal this campaign is trying to achieve because M&M wants to keep and build its customer base and to be able to gain competitive advantage over its competitors. Value appropriation is the last goal it is trying to achieve because it wants to generate effective sales.

**Techniques Applied**
This campaign integrates various platforms to communicate M&M's message to its target audience. The different advertising platforms that are applied in this campaign work together. The tools that the campaign provides to consumers that are willing to participate are the advertising platforms of the campaign. The tools become the space for communicating and accessing the target audience with the M&M brand. The achievement of the campaign's scavenger hunt game requires consumers to use a combination of accessible tools in order to collect clues which can help them find the locations of the red M&M.

Advertising Platforms
Different advertising platforms are used to help M&M achieve it goals, especially in brand engagement. The following are the advertising platforms this campaign applied: YouTube, Google Maps Street view, print posters with QR codes, Twitter, Facebook, a campaign website, bar codes on M&M products, the Stickybits app, and the Foursquares app. The two Youtube Videos that are posted here are some of the videos that were released for the campaign. The first YouTube video is uploaded by Proximity while the other video is uploaded in the M&M's commercials channel. The first video explains how people can get involved in the campaign's game, and it provides an overview of the various accessible tools that the participants can use to be able to play the game. The second video provides a scenario for participants or consumers in order to give them an idea of what is the main goal of the game. The second video shows viewers how the red M&M got lost, and it includes clues that participants can use in order to go to the next step of playing the game. Basically, both videos encourage target consumers to participate in the game. Google Maps' Street view is used by consumers as tool for locating the red M&M. Consumers access the Google Maps' Street View via the campaign's website ([|www.findred.ca]). Print posters of M&M characters with QR codes are placed on the walls in Toronto which encourage people to use their phones in order to find the clue that the QR code holds (Gadzalla 2011). Twitter and Facebook are used to encourage participants and interested consumers to spread the word about the campaign's game to their friends and followers. The campaign website is where information about the clues and the locations of the red M&M are entered as well as where the game takes place. The bar codes on the M&M products are accessed via the Stickybits app which reveal clues to the game (Gadzalla 2011). The Foursquares app provides players or participants clues on the location of the red M&M.

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 * YouTube videos:**

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 * QR Codes on Print Posters:**


 * Stickybits App:**


 * Foursquares App:**


 * Campaign Website:**

 *Images of tools used in campaign: []

**Conclusion**
M&M's campaign is trying to apply different platforms to communicate and advertise M&M to the target audience by providing and encouraging consumers to engage with the experience the brand provides them with the campaign's game. Use of different platforms provide M&M the opportunity to manage brand engagement and other goals like word-of-mouth. This campaign can improve M&M's customer relationship management in Canada. The results of the campaign are the following: over 19 minutes spent on the campaign's website and 21 million impressions totaled from the various platforms that were used (Gadzala 2011). Overall the techniques that were applied in this campaign seemed effective because they helped M&M achieve its main goals for the campaign like brand awareness. This campaign applied the right communication tools for the intended purpose of the campaign.

__**Works Cited for Both Campaigns**__
Blum, Jonathan. "Cross-Media Case Study: Good Red Hunting." //MediaPost – News and Conferences for Media, Marketing and Online Advertising Professionals//. MediaPost Communications, 11 Jan. 2011. Web. 04 Feb. 2012. [].

Gadzala, Kelley. "DAOY Gold: Proximity’s Disciplined Approach to Digital." //Strategy//. Brunico Communications Ltd., 10 Nov. 2011. Web. 4 Feb. 2012. [].

Houpt, Simon. "The Tweet Taste of Success." //Home - The Globe and Mail//. The Globe and Mail Inc., 1 Dec. 2011. Web. 064 Feb. 2012. [].

McCabe, Maisie. "T-Mobile Launches Royal Wedding Spoof Ad." //Campaign//. Haymarket Business Media, 18 Apr. 2011. Web. 03 Feb. 2012. [].

O'Reilly, Lara. "Wills and Kate Throw Shapes in T-Mobile Ad." //Marketing Jobs & Marketing News - Media, Advertising, Brands - Marketing Week//. Centaur Media PLC, 15 Apr. 2011. Web. 03 Feb. 2012. [].

Pilkington, Andy. "T-mobile Score a Hit With “Fun” and “Innovative” Royal Wedding Dance Viral." //Wave://. WaveMetrix Limited, 8 Apr. 2011. Web. 3 Feb. 2012. [].